I installed this package: https://github.com/feathersjs/feathers-authentication-local (question not related specifically to this package). This package's source code is in ./src, and npm run compile puts the babel-transpiled code into ./lib, which is the main entry point.
My question is, after I do npm install feathers-authentication-local, how does npm know that it needs to run npm run compile? I thought of putting a postinstall script in package.json, this package doesn't have that.
Regarding what is uploaded to npm when publishing, there are two fields in package.json, files and directories, which are used to specify what should be uploaded.
Take a look as well to "main" property, it points to the files that will be used when importing a module in your aplication so:
import foo from 'foo'
Will look into node_modules/foo/$(main) which in this case points to lib/
The package actually doesn't compile after install on client's machines, but it's probably compiled on the mantainer's machine and then published on NPM.
Compiling process is fired by the prepublish script in package.json.
Related
I am in a situation where I need to ship node_modules with the rest of my code because the destination machines do not have access to our private network (and our private npm repository).
My problem is that I want to execute everything that happens after npm downloads all the files so that individual packages can build themselves correctly for the target machine. Is there a way to accomplish this? Here are a couple other ways to phrase this question:
How can I run npm install, but skip the download step?
How can I run postinstall for installed node_modules only?
I finally got it figured it out. There were a couple of important steps to make this happen:
When we get ready to package our code for distribution, we download all of the npm dependencies with the --ignore-scripts and --no-bin-links option. This prevents any packages from building/compiling or linking any bin files. This is effectively only downloading the node_modules.
npm install --omit=dev --ignore-scripts --no-bin-links
We then distribute our code to the target machine and run the following command so that any compilations and bin links happen on the target machine:
npm rebuild
I'm working on a vue.js frontend, and I need to patch a package to fit the special needs of the app. The package I'm trying to patch is 'vue-youtube' (not that it really matters). I'm trying to patch it with patch-package (https://www.npmjs.com/package/patch-package)
So basically :
I edited locally the /node_modules/vue-youtube/src/vue-youtube.js to fit my needs
I did add the postinstall script in my package.json : "scripts": { "postinstall": "patch-package" }
I did npm install patch-package --save-dev
Then I ran npx patch-package vue-youtube
It did create a vue-youtube+1.4.0.patch file in a /patches folder with my modifications
BUT, my modifications are not seen. When I do npm run serve and launch my webapp, the package used is still the one not edited. I tried running npm install before, without success. When I go to the /node_modules/vue-youtube/dist/vue-youtube.js (thankfully it is a small package so it is readable), I can see that indeed my modifications have not been "compiled".
What am I missing here ? I feel like I have followed eveything in the patch-package npm page..
Thanks
EDIT : Still investigating.. few more informations/questions :
my patch name is patches/vue-youtube+1.4.0.patch
when i run npm ls vue-youtube it returns just one element : vue-youtube#1.4.0
in my package.json the dependency listed is "vue-youtube": "^1.4.0", should it be different ? should it mention that it needs to be patched ?
EDIT 2 : I realized that I am not editing the node_modules/vue-youtube/dist/vue-youtube.js, but the node_modules/vue-youtube/src/vue-youtube.
If you edit the files in the dist folder, the patch works. (however I thought patch-package would allow me to edit the files in the src folder, in readable JS...)
WORKING SOLUTION :
If you edit the files directly in the dist/ folder of the package instead of the src/ folder, the patch works fine.
Adding below npm script in package.json after patching worked for me.
scripts: {
"prepare": "patch-package",
}
The lines from yarn documentation explains about prepare
For compatibility reasons, scripts called install, postinstall, prepublish, and prepare will all be called after your package has finished installing.
After adding this script in package.json, the changes of module file in patches folder has been patched into respective node module.
I was trying to do the exact same thing with some package, let's call it "some_package". When I saw the EDIT 2 my mind just connected the dots...
To test changes locally
Modify the files in node_modules/some_package/src folder and then, go to the node_modules/some_package and run:
$ npm install
$ npm run <name of the script that generates the dist folder>
No need to run npx patch-package nor postinstall step.
I think that this approach doesn't work for all packages, it depends on how the modified package's package.json is configured. Specifically, pay attention where the browser field is pointing (in my case ./dist/some_package.js).
CAVEAT: You will have to run npm install and npm run every time you make an update to the package.
To test changes and be able to share it among team members (when the package is on Github)
Make a fork of the package you want to modify.
Make all the changes you want to your forked version of the package.
Run the following to automatically update the package.json file to make the dependency point to your forked version:
$ npm install <github's user name>/<package's name of the forked repository>#<branch name> --save-prod
For instance, if your Github's user name is "johndoe", and you forked https://github.com/aurelia/framework, and you made a branch named "mycoolbranch" containing your changes, then it would be:
$ npm install johndoe/aurelia-framework#mycoolbranch --save-prod
Note that the --save-prod flag could be replaced with --save-dev if the dependency is just for development.
Take a look at this answer, it may help.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/71153240/9981565
For me it was happening because of version mismatch between package.json intended version of package and yarn.lock / package-lock.json
I am studying about npm and I have some questions.
Where the npm get the package from? i.e. when run npm install <package-name> or yarn add <package-name>.
When get the package, do npm get the package as raw or get then build it(like run the build script written in package.json)?
When publish the package, the repository field of package.json is required?
Can be different between the repository for publishing and the repository in pacakge.json?
To answer your questions:
npm gets them from the NPM package registry, and so does yarn, but Yarn probably has a proxy registry in front of it. In general, you can say, both tools fetch their packages from https://npmjs.com by default.
It gets the package as it was published (so, in short, the answer is "raw"). Building is up to the publisher and depends on the type of package. Often, some prepublish task builds something into dist/ (or any other location in the package), and these files are also shipped with the package others then download. Building rarely happens after installing a package (exception here are library-wrapping packages built with node-gyp).
The repository field is not required, to my knowledge, but it is good practise to include it (it will be displayed on the NPM website, for example).
Technically, yes. You can just specify any repository in repository, but it wouldn't make much sense to specify one that isn't the source of the package.
If you in general want to read up more on how npm works, check out it's documentation over at https://docs.npmjs.com/
Simple question : Is it possible, in a package.json, to reference another package.json, and install its dependencies ?
Thank you.
Yes, this is possible, and this is automatically done by npm install.
If you have pkg-a that depends on pkg-b, including pkg-a in your dependencies will install both pkg-a and pkg-b when running npm install. That is because dependencies are actually references to the package.json of other packages. NPM, upon running install, builds a dependency tree of all the packages that are indirectly required by your current project, and installs all of them in the node_modules directory, and keeps track of them all in package-lock.json.
Good question! but this is not possible as you cannot internally reference one json document from another (json is just a document format, it lacks any ability to process logic, import files etc), npm is configured to run using a single package.json file so your best best would be to put all your dependencies in a single package.json file or split your project into two directories with two separate package.json files, two npm installs etc, if for some reason you require your dependencies to be separate. You could then run your two node projects separately and connect via http if you wish.
The only way that you could come close to doing this would be to write an npm start script in the package.json that cds to another directory with a package.json and runs npm install, this would however only install the dependencies in the second directory node-modules/ folder
Is it possible to install an npm package without all the other artifacts. For instance install only the content of the dist folder for the jQuery npm package?
It remains to the module publisher to exclude such files as sources, docs, tests ... and only include build and binary files when they publish their npm package (via prepublish hooks, .npmignore files, etc ...).
Not all maintainers are aware / take that in account ... The only thing you can do, as a module consumer (when you npm install) is to use the --production flag, not to install devDependencies (but that's not what you're looking for)